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weight shaving

thatK30guy

thatK30guy

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Got to thinking about the Trazer build and how to get rid of unwanted weight. This after reading about the dash that was removed in another thread.

I'm wondering how much weight would be lost if you removed all the glass and put Plexi-glass in place of the windshield and rear glass. I don't need door glass and would remove the regulators.

I'd remove the whole dash assembly and leave it bare but with a few tabs or brackets to mount the necessary gauges and tach.

The stock bench seat would get tossed in favor of some lighter weight buckets. Don't know exactly which buckets yet.

What do you think? Worth the hassle or not? The lighter the truck, the more power to weight ration. I'm not building a street cruiser. This is all play. If I decide I want to drive it on the streets, I can swap another cab over to it.
 
Shave all the weight you can. The more weight you can drop the easier it will climb, stop, turn etc.

Look at EVERY off road vehicle outside of 4x4s. Bikes, motorcycles, dune buggies, rock buggies etc etc etc.
 
Plexiglass windshield will scratch and etch 100x faster than glass... Might have to replace it every so often. What kind of wheeling do you do? If no mud then run without glass and gut the doors. I knew a guy that shaved alot from the doors of a drag camaro by gutting them and putting on aluminum skins.
 
GsxrMike said:
Plexiglass windshield will scratch and etch 100x faster than glass... Might have to replace it every so often. What kind of wheeling do you do? If no mud then run without glass and gut the doors. I knew a guy that shaved alot from the doors of a drag camaro by gutting them and putting on aluminum skins.
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I don't mind Plexi-glass. Its cheaper than the real glass. All that weight eliminated is a big plus.

We do lots of river cruising here. On sand and in water. Occasional hills now and then. Mud whenever it rains, but I don't care for this as its a PITA to clean up. My big thing is to make it light for the sand. Towing the rig to Little Sahara to run the dunes would be another thing to do. Buy some paddle tires and hope the rig is light enough and powerful enough with the 454.

I could install glass in the winter time and put on different doors that have glass and regulators so we could play in snow. Just gotta think of some way to heat the cab along with defrosting the glass, too. Maybe a Vornado space heater? :D
 
Where do I look for something like this? Got a link to a website?
 
I vote for losing all the glass, removing the doors, tubing the rear, aluminum motor parts where you can, removing all the material you can on the inner fenders, not running a winch just some good tow hooks, & remove the wipers :D ...if you want to remove more weight, start with a geo & add beefed parts as needed...
 
If ya really want to save some weight, dont use a 454, stick with a hopped up small block or caddy 500. Especially since that will remove weight from the front. Since your building a trazer you are going to want to move some weight towards the middle/rear of the rig. I'd ditch the door and back glass. You could get a lexan windshield but thats $. Also you may want to consider moving the battery(s) to the rear as well as the radiator.

Off topic: What rear suspension are you thinking of going with?
 
Here's my experience from when I tubed mine out (I didn't weigh any of the parts specifically):

The inner fenders on the rear (the ones that are integral to the bed on a Blazer) are ridiculously heavy. Probably 150 lbs per side.

The firewall (which I still have at least half of) is very heavy.

The hood is heavy and skinning that will probably save you close to 50 lbs.

The doors are also pretty heavy so getting rid of them will save a bunch of weight (100 lbs per side?)

The roof on the 75-91 K5's is probably another 75 lbs.

The glass in the truck is somewhat heavy, but if you are ditching the top and doors anyway going to a plastic windshield will only lose 50 lbs or so (which may or may not be worth it to you, polycarbonate is practically indestructible but is much easier to scratch than glass as aforementioned).
 
Having been in on several builds and having a very minimal buggy I would say that you want to save every ounce you can but don't expect to have something weighing less than 4,000#.

Each fullsize that I have been around that has a 60, 14b, SB, doubler and thick wall driveshafts that seats two to four people weighs roughly 4,000# then you add tools, spares etc.

Keep in mind these are all truggies or buggies.
 
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